


Unintended Cruelty, Overwhelming Kindness

by afteriwake



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angry John, Awesome Molly, Developing Relationship, F/M, Fights, Gen, Making Up, POV Molly Hooper, Season/Series 02, Sherlock Being Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes & John Watson Friendship, Sherlock Holmes and John Watson Being Idiots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-19
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-04-21 14:14:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4832126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When John calls Sherlock a freak unintentionally in the midst of a fight and Sherlock puts back up every barrier he’d torn down since John had moved in, Molly attempts to help fix things and gets more than she bargained for out of the experience.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sherlolly2015](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sherlolly2015/gifts).



> So a while back, I [saw a post](http://s12.postimg.org/qz6n383nx/Thing_Part_1.jpg) on one of the Facebook groups I'm on that someone took from Tumblr about John calling Sherlock a freak and all of his barriers coming up, and I wrote a response to the Facebook group about Molly trying to fix it. When my friend **sherlolly2015** asked for an angsty (but with eventual happy ending) Sherlolly fic that wasn't overly fluffy I thought of actually writing it up as a fic and voila! This fic was born. Hopefully all of you guys will enjoy this.

Molly could see things were tense between Sherlock and John. Not the normal kind of “Sherlock left a human brain in the microwave” tense or “Sherlock stayed up till three AM on the violin when I had to be in at the surgery at eight” tense. It was something else. Something big. Something was simmering between them, some deep festering hurt, and it was going to blow up and explode and she wasn’t sure when or how.

Sherlock was looking over the body that she had pulled out from the drawer, paying particular attention to the tire marks that had appeared on the back since the victim had been run over. “Have you identified them?” he asked her.

She shook her head. “I was going to do that in a bit, after I got done running tests on the gravel found in the lacerations on his forearm.”

“Don’t bother,” he said, putting the man back down.

She frowned. “With the tire tread or the gravel?” she asked.

“Both, probably,” John said from the refrigeration unit, where he’d been leaning with arms crossed. Sherlock gave him a puzzled look and he rolled his eyes. “You’re telling her not to do her bloody job, Sherlock. What’s next? Do you want to do the post-mortem as well?”

“I was simply going to tell her I recognized the tire treads,” Sherlock said in a cold tone through slightly gritted teeth.

“I don’t need to do the tire treads, then,” Molly said, her tone just a little too bright.

“Well, if he won’t tell you what they are you should do them anyway,” John said, pushing away from the unit. “After all, what good is the information if only _he_ knows it? If he doesn’t think to _share_ it then it doesn’t do the rest of us any bloody good then, now, does it?”

“John, it’s all right,” Molly said.

“I was planning on sharing it, for your information,” Sherlock said. “I don’t purport to know everything--” 

“Yes you do,” John said. “World’s only consulting detective. More like world’s greatest know-it-all.”

“Is there something you want to say to me?” Sherlock said, turning away from the body and advancing on John.

“Yeah,” he said with an emphatic nod. “Yeah, I think there is. I think it’s about time I finally spoke up for myself. You’ve run roughshod over my life from the minute I moved in. And it’s got to stop.”

“I have not,” Sherlock said, crossing his arms.

“You’ve ruined countless relationships of mine,” John said, holding up one finger.

“None of them were suitable,” Sherlock protested.

“Not your decision to make, mate,” John said. He held up another finger. “You’ve endangered my life God knows how many times.” Then he held up a third. “You’ve snooped through my room, my laptop, anything of mine you can get your grubby little hands on—”

“It’s not always me,” Sherlock said.

“Well, it’s not like I asked your brother to do it either!” John said in an exasperated tone. He shut his eyes. “I just…all I want is some space. Some time and some space to clear my head. And you can’t even give me that. You drag me off on a case when I just want some god damn _privacy_.”

“But it’s a _seven,_ ” Sherlock said.

“Can you just stop being such a _freak_ and just act _normal_ for once?!?” John shouted. Molly gasped and John’s eyes snapped open. Molly was looking at Sherlock when John said that and she could see as if a switch just switched off in his head, as if the old Sherlock was back, the bitter, aloof one. He turned and made his way to the door. “Sherlock, I…”

Sherlock paused at the morgue doors. “You were the only one who never called me that,” Sherlock said quietly before leaving the morgue.

Molly bit her lip for a moment before stowing the body into the refrigeration unit and then going over to John. “Come on into the office. I can put the kettle on and…I think it’d do you good to have a cuppa and tell me what the bloody hell that was all about.”

John nodded weakly and the two of them made their way into her office. She plugged in her kettle and then cleared off the second chair so John could sit down. He did, sagging into it before running a hand over his face. “I’ve told you about my sister Harry before, right?” he asked.

Molly nodded. “Yeah. She had a…”

“Problem with the drink?” John said, a humorless smile on his face. Molly nodded slowly. “Well, she relapsed. She’d been clean and sober for a while but things happened and she made a fool of herself but this time…this time she seems to really want to make a go of sobriety. I went to go see her and she looks like hell but she’s trying. I got back and my girlfriend had stopped by and Sherlock…” He shook his head. “Sherlock had done what Sherlock does best and managed to fuck up another one of my relationships by telling my ex _just_ enough to get her to think Harry was my gay lover and when I tried to explain Harry was short for Harriet it just got worse.”

Molly was quiet for a moment. “Sounds to me like it might not all have been Sherlock’s fault. I mean, if you tried to explain and she didn’t want to hear it, at least from a woman’s point of view, she was looking for an excuse. Or she was just a jealous….woman.”

John considered that for a moment and then sighed. “Well, in the end I blamed Sherlock so I booked a few nights at a hotel and then this morning he’s in the room, as you please, telling me to get up, come to a crime scene, come to Barts, it’s a seven. And then…you know, what just happened happened. And Christ, I didn’t mean to call him a freak. I…he isn’t…I would never…”

“I know,” she said, reaching over and grasping his hands in hers.

“Have you ever done it?” he asked. “Called him a freak?”

She shook her head. “No. No, I never once thought of him like that. But I don’t count. I’ve never really counted to him. He doesn’t see me as anything more than the person he goes to for body parts and autopsy reports. I mean, I’m not even a friend, not really.” She gave him a reassuring smile. “It’ll take time, and some intense groveling and a lot of reassurances, but I think he’ll get over it.”

“You really think so?” John asked.

“I think so,” she said, squeezing his hands. In the back of her mind, though, she felt a shred of doubt. She had seen the walls go up, seen it ever so clearly, and she wasn’t quite sure what it would take to bring them back down. She just hoped they came down because she really did like the way Sherlock was now. And with that in mind, she resolved to help the situation along as much as she could.


	2. Chapter 2

She watched them both, over the next few days. And then the days stretched to a week, then two. It was obvious that John’s remark had wounded Sherlock deeply. And John was being good about giving him time and space, for the most part. He was making overtures, but Sherlock was rebuffing them, as Molly had thought he would. She made it a point to talk to John, to keep his hopes up, to make sure he wasn’t discouraged, as she tried to figure out a way to convince Sherlock that John really didn’t mean what he had said.

She could see Sherlock was hurting. John meant the world to him. Their friendship…it was important to him. To be honest, John’s friendship with him was probably the most important relationship Sherlock had. And she wanted to make sure it didn’t go away. Those two idiots needed each other, and it was obvious, at least to her, that things weren’t good when they were both hurting over something stupid said in the heat of the moment in anger.

It had been a day over two weeks when Sherlock was in the path lab, running samples on a case. Molly hovered near the door, debating whether now would be a good time to speak with him, when he spoke. “Don’t dawdle by the door,” he said, not pulling his eyes away from his microscope.

She nodded and moved away from the doorway and came further into the path lab. “You’re miserable,” she said quietly.

“I am no such thing,” he replied.

“That’s bollocks and you know it,” she replied.

He slowly pulled away from the microscope and looked at her, his eyes slightly wide. “Pardon?” he asked, his tone surprised.

“John is your best mate,” she said. “And he said something in the heat of the moment when he was angry at you that hurt you. Which, by the way, he had every right to be pissed off at you.” Sherlock opened his mouth to protest but she gave him a stern look and he closed it. “And you put up your walls again and you’ve shut him out and you’re miserable because of it. And he’s miserable too, when the both of you could talk it out like…like fully functional adults should and be _not_ miserable. There’s too much misery in this world and you’re sitting here choosing to be miserable and that’s just…stupid. And you’re not a stupid man.”

Sherlock stared at her for a moment. She could see he was in buffering mode. She’d only been like this with him once before, at the Christmas party, and after a moment he slumped slightly, almost folding in on himself a bit. “I suppose I am,” he said quietly.

She blinked. “Stupid?” she asked, slightly confused.

“Miserable,” he replied. “I see he’s trying to make amends, but…it cut me to the core. He is the first real friend I’ve had, and the only one who hasn’t called me a freak.”

She nodded. “We all say silly, stupid things in anger, Sherlock. We all say things to wound when we’re hurting and we want to hurt the person who hurt us.”

“I hurt him?” he asked, his brow furrowing.

“He wanted privacy, and time to gather his thoughts and heal. And you didn’t give him that. You were being selfish. You do have a tendency to be that way, even though you’re better now. And you cost him a relationship to boot.”

“It was ending anyway,” he said.

“Still. It wasn’t your place to help end it faster.” She hesitated a moment, and then put a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve made such wonderful strides being more…likeable, I suppose. Being a person we want to associate with. But you still have work to do. And it’d be a shame to toss it all away over something said in the heat of the moment. And it’d be a shame to throw away a friendship over something that was really your fault to begin with, too. When you go back to Baker Street you should sit and talk with John. And actually listen to what he has to say. Don’t just hear what you want to hear. Be…empathetic and sympathetic. It would do you more good in the long run.” She gave him a smile. “And it would definitely be good skills to work on for clients as well to boot.”

He nodded, and she lifted her hand up and turned away, moving back towards the door. She was a few steps away before he spoke again. “Molly,” he said.

“Yes?” she asked, turning around.

He was quiet for a moment. “I’ve been mistaken,” he said.

“About what?” she asked, confused.

“John is not the only one who had never called me a freak,” he said slowly. “You never have, either.”

She shrugged slightly, giving him a small smile. “It’s all right that you didn’t realize it,” she said. “I don’t matter. I’m not important.” She turned around again and made her way to the door, hurrying a bit more this time. She put her hand on the knob and let herself out, going into the hallway. Hopefully she got him to see the folly in how he was acting. Hopefully she had helped in maybe getting him to make amends with John. It would be good if he did, because really, they both deserved better than what they had right now.

And maybe, perhaps, she would get the slightly nicer Sherlock back as well. That would be nice, too.


	3. Chapter 3

It was about a week later that she had another body in her morgue that Sherlock would definitely need to come by and see for a case. She texted him when she was done with the autopsy and then waited for him to come, wondering if he would come alone or with John. She was almost waiting with baited breath it seemed until the doors opened and she saw both Sherlock and John walk in, and then she let it go and gave them a smile. “Worked it all out, I see?”

“Among many things,” Sherlock said with a nod. “As fully functioning adults would.”

She flushed just slightly at that. "I didn’t mean it as an insult,” she said quietly.

Sherlock had a look on his face as if he was upset he had said the wrong thing. “And I did not mean to say it as if I had taken it as one. My apologies.” John glanced over at him with a grin and Sherlock scowled slightly. She gave the scene a slightly puzzling look before Sherlock turned to her and then nodded towards the refrigeration unit. “You said you have results for me?”

She nodded, instantly becoming more businesslike. “Yes, though…there’s no actually fleshy body.”

Sherlock blinked. “No body?”

“It’s a long story,” she said, and as she began to go into it she saw Sherlock was hanging on her every word, which was a tad unusual, and John was watching with a rather strange and knowing smile on his face. She showed Sherlock the victim’s skeleton, and the various indentations in the bone of the sharp implements used to stab him multiple times, and then gave him the photographs of the stab wounds for all the good it would do him. The two men lingered after a moment. “Yes?” she asked.

John came over and embraced her for a moment, and she embraced him back. “Thank you, for talking to Sherlock. We had a really good chat, about a lot of things, not just the incident here and everything that led up to it. Didn’t even have a tiff. I mean, it was an honest to God productive conversation. We’ve been making changes about things. Small ones, but they’re making a difference. It’s easier to live together now.”

“That’s good,” she said with a warm smile as she pulled away slightly. “I’m glad I could help.”

John glanced over at Sherlock and then his own grin widened. “I’m sure Sherlock is going to want to thank you too, in private. Mind if I go into your office? I thought I might call Harry, see how she’s holding up, see if she needs anything.”

Molly nodded. “Of course.”

John moved over to Sherlock and punched him in the arm slightly, saying something quietly. Molly thought he’d said “She won’t bite” or something along those lines, but she wasn’t sure. She began to put the remains away as Sherlock stood there quietly for a moment. “Thank you for your advice,” he said once the office door had shut.

“You’re welcome,” she said. “I didn’t want to see you or John hurting, that’s all. You’re both dear to me.”

“I see,” he said, looking down. She finished putting the remains away and then stood near him, nearly in front of him, waiting for him to speak. “You…fancied me, for quite a long time.”

She nodded. “I did, yeah,” she replied, wondering where this was going.

“Did,” he said quietly. He seemed to be dismayed at her choice in words. 

She gave him a strange look. “Sherlock…what are you trying to get at?” she asked.

He still wouldn’t look up at her, but he appeared to fidget a bit. Finally he began to move, pacing back and forth in front of her in the small space he could. “In the course of my conversation with John some…truths…came to light, on both our ends. Some truths neither of us wanted to acknowledge, but we were forced to. And he forced me to acknowledge I may care for you in a more than friendly manner, no matter how much it may be easier or safer to deny it. It had started to become clear at the Christmas party, and it has seemingly become more noticeable at times to those with a discerning eye ever since, though I thought I was better at hiding it.”

She had thought she would be rooted to the spot but she moved in an instant, planting herself in his path so he was forced to stop, forced to look at her. He nearly collided with her but he put his hands out to steady himself, settling them on her shoulders before quickly pulling them away. “It’s fine,” she said quietly. “You can touch me.” After a moment he slowly placed his hands back on her shoulders. “Are you saying, Sherlock, that _you_ fancy _me_?”

‘You’ve never once treated me cruelly, no matter how many times I have done so to you,” he said, using his thumb to caress her shoulders slightly. “And I denied that to myself until the day you gave me the advice. But I knew, deep down, that you cared for me, that you would never hurt me, and perhaps that was why I allowed myself to form an attraction towards you. But you just said you no longer felt the same way. And yet you’re letting me touch you. Why?”

She took a step closer and then raised herself up to brush her lips across his lightly. Nothing more than a light kiss, but just something to let him know she was still very much attracted to him. He shut his eyes at that. “You had asked me if I did fancy you. And I did fancy you, yes. But I do _still_ fancy you, Sherlock. You should ask better questions for a consulting detective.”

A small smile formed on his face as he opened his eyes. “Then, perhaps, would an invitation to lunch be a good question?”

She nodded, a wide smile forming on her own face. “An invitation to lunch would be an excellent question to ask.” His own smile widened slightly and she pulled away to go get her things. This day had taken an interesting turn, it seemed, and hopefully one for the better.


End file.
